This disclosure relates to pharmaceutical depots that contribute to the local treatment of pain and do not exhibit noticeable dimensional changes when stored.
Pain can be divided into two types: nociceptive pain and neuropathic pain. Acute nociceptive pain refers to pain experienced when tissue is being damaged or is damaged. Acute pain serves at least two physiologically advantageous purposes. First, it warns of dangerous environmental stimuli (such as hot or sharp objects) by triggering reflexive responses that end contact with the dangerous stimuli. Second, if reflexive responses do not avoid dangerous environmental stimuli effectively, or tissue injury or infection otherwise results, acute pain facilitates recuperative behaviors. For example, acute pain associated with an injury or infection encourages an organism to protect the compromised area from further insult or use while the injury or infection heals. Once the dangerous environmental stimulus is removed, or the injury or infection has resolved, acute pain, having served its physiological purpose, ends.
Post-operative pain is a result of a surgical procedure. Traditional surgical procedures for pathologies located deep within the body can cause significant trauma to the intervening tissues. These open procedures can often require a long incision, extensive muscle stripping, prolonged retraction of tissues, denervation and devascularization of tissue. Many of these surgeries require a recovery room time of several hours and several weeks of post-operative recovery time due to the use of general anesthesia and the destruction of tissue during the surgical procedure. In some cases, these invasive procedures lead to permanent scarring and chronic pain that can be more severe than the pain leading to the surgical intervention.